Consumer health information is growing in importance and popularity, with computer networks such as the Internet providing a growing share of the information. It is estimated that health issues are addressed at tens of thousands of online sites with potentially millions of pages of health or benefit-related works. Even more health related information exists on networks available to medical professionals. Given the volume and complexity of the available medical information, lay consumers without specific medical training are at a disadvantage and can have relatively little success in finding desired or relevant information among such vast resources.
Moreover, given the extremely personal nature of health, most individuals have minimal interest in browsing materials that have no relevance to their health or the health of their families. Yet most of the health information accessible to the lay public exists on conventional network (e.g., Internet) sites or portals and addresses only general topics. Such information seldom has any particular relevance to individual users. Accordingly, there is a need for improved systems for obtaining relevant, personalized health related information from computer networks such as the Internet.